d had been absent for many months. On New Year's day he
was to go home; but many painful feelings mingled with the thought of
seeing his long-neglected and much-abused family. Since he had been
away, he had expended more than half his earnings upon himself, and yet
his appearance was worse than when he went from home, for, in exchange
for his money, he had received only poison.

It was evening. Without, the air was cold. The sky was clear, and the
moon and stars shone brightly. Foster walked a short distance from the
house, trying to drive from his mind the images that had been conjured
up by the words of the children and their mother; but he could not. His
own abused wife and neglected little ones were before him, in their
comfortless home, poorly clad, and pale and thin from want of healthy
and sufficient food. Did they think of him, and talk with so much
delight of his return? Alas! no. He brought no sunshine to their
cheerless abode.

"Wretch! wretch!" he said to himself, striking his hand hard against
his bosom. "A curse to them!--a curse to myself!"

For an hour the unhappy man stayed out in the chilly air; but he did
not feel the cold. Then he re-entered the house, but did not go into
the room where the happy mother sat with her children, but to the
lonely attic where he slept.

Twenty miles away lived the wife and three children of Foster. The
oldest boy was eleven years of age, and the youngest child, a little
girl, just five. Three small mounds, in a burying-ground near by where
the humble dwelling stood, marked the place where as many more
slept--more blessed than the living. The mother of these children was a
pale-faced woman, with a bent forth and an aspect of suffering. She had
been long acquainted with sorrow and trouble. Like hundreds and
thousands of others in our land, she had left, years before, the
pleasant home of her girlhood, to be the loving companion of one on
whose solemnly pledged faith she relied with the most unwavering
confidence. And, for a time, the trust was not in vain. The first
golden period of her married life was a happy time indeed! None could
have been more thoughtful of her comfort, nor more tender of her
feelings, than was her husband. But, alas! it was with him as with
hundreds and thousands of others. Not once did it cross his mind that
there was danger to him in the pleasant glass that was daily taken. The
bare suggestion he would have repelled as an insult. On the day of